An Oak Park attorney was arrested by federal agents outside his child’s elementary school Monday morning for allegedly impeding immigration enforcement agents.
Scott Sakiyama told Wednesday Journal he was arrested after driving behind an Immigration and Customs Enforcement van and honking his horn and blowing a whistle in an effort to identify the unmarked car as an immigration enforcement vehicle. Sakiyama, a civil litigation attorney, had also been arrested by Broadview police the week before while he said he was taking photos of vehicles leaving the Broadview ICE detention facility.
Sakiyama has been monitoring ICE activity and advocating for an end to the agency’s mass deportation efforts in Chicagoland over recent weeks, including by serving as a media spokesperson for the family of Paul Ivery after the intellectually disabled Oak Park man was arrested at a Broadview protest and his since-dismissed federal assault case drew significant press attention.
He is now charged with impeding federal agents, Sakiyama said.
“The federal government is abusing its power, we’ve seen them disappearing people that they don’t think should be here,” he said. “Now they’re trying to criminalize honking your horn and blowing a whistle.”
Sakiyama disputes some facts included in his citation, namely that he “cutoff” agents on the road. He called that a “complete fabrication.”
Sakiyama said he’d followed the van from ICE’s detention facility in Broadview to I-290 and into Oak Park on Monday morning. He said he continued following the van down Austin Boulevard, Garfield Street and Harvard Street near Barrie Park when the agents first exited their van and approached him.
He said that he reversed away until the agents got back into the van before he continued following them. The agents stopped again near Lincoln Elementary, Harvard and Grove, where Sakiyama’s youngest child is a student, and approached Sakiyama, who said he couldn’t reverse away from them again because another car was now driving behind him.
Sakiyama was removed from his car, placed in handcuffs and put in the back of the ICE agents’ van. A south Oak Park resident took a video of the arrest and posted it to Facebook.
In the video, the agents are recorded telling Sakiyama to exit his vehicle before they break his windows to get him out. Sakiyama said that agents pointed their firearms at him during the arrest.
Sakiyama said agents took him to the Broadview detention facility, but that he wasn’t brought inside the building. After about 30 minutes, the agents brought him back to his car near Lincoln Elementary.
He was in custody for about an hour in total, he said.
“Once they put the guns away, I wasn’t abused,” he said.
By the time he was brought back, a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk outside of the school, he said. His wife was there along with a few of his friends, but most of those gathered were “concerned” school parents and South Oak Park neighbors, Sakiyama said.
“It was another example of the community turning out to protect each other,” he said. “I talked with a lot of folks about how they can get more involved.”
After the incident, school administrators placed Lincoln Elementary on its “secure” safety protocol, where the building’s exterior doors are locked and students and staff are kept inside the building, according to District 97 spokesperson Amanda Siegfried,. The district also sent a message to Lincoln parents.
“Students and staff are safe, and learning is continuing as normal,” the message said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we will stay on Secure status through dismissal, and district administrators will remain on site this afternoon to provide extra support.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 14 Sakiyama had been arrested by Broadview police for allegedly violating the protest curfew executive order set by village leaders the week before. He was given a Village Ordinance Violation Citation for disorderly conduct and a notice to appear for a village hearing on Nov. 24, according to a Broadview spokesperson.
Sakiyama said he was not protesting, but that he was acting as a “documentarian” taking photos of vehicles leaving the detention facility.
He said he was processed and released quickly after his arrest in Broadview. Sakiyama said both arrests were violations of his freedom of speech and called on federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to respect free exspression.
“Governor Pritzker told us to get out and document what we’re seeing, that’s exactly what I was doing,” he said.
